Hot Topics

Watch These Pilots Launch Planes off Cliffs

This video of flying in the remote Alaskan mountains will leave you in awe of bush pilots.

By Tarquin Cooper on 14 October 2016

They don't have runways in the Alaskan wilderness. There are mountains, rivers and highways of glaciated ice. And a lot of bears. So bush pilots have to be extremely skilled at landing and taking off from whatever ground is available, whether that's a strip of green alongside a riverbank or a patch of mountain snow. And if it's not long enough to take off, well, as pilots Paul Guschlbauer and Bobby Breedendemonstrate in the video above, you can always roll off a cliff.

"You almost don't need any room before; you can just roll off a cliff. You just push the stick forward and wait until you have enough speed, which is pretty cool. If you go really slow, it can be scary though."

"I went there again to get more into the crazy bush-flying stuff," he says. Interestingly, the guy showing him how was a 22-year-old named Bobby Breeden — seen in the video in the plane with orange racing stripes.

"He's a really crazy guy," says Guschlbauer. "He's been flying since 14 or 15 and he's won a couple of short-landing competitions — he's really one of the best guys at it. He showed me a lot of things: landing on glaciers, mountains and other steep things."